If you missed my day 0, you can view it here.

Day 1 started with getting registered for Oracle AI World, before heading to the Oracle Partner Success Summit, followed by the Oracle EMEA Partner Awards, and finally the Database Premier Customer Appreciation Event in the evening.

Registering for Oracle AI World

Started the day having breakfast with Leona (CEO of UKOUG), Geoff (my Version 1 colleague), and Ambili (fellow Oracle ACE and friend). And keeping things healthy, I went for the same breakfast as usual: sourdough bread, lightly boiled eggs and avocado. Followed by blogging about Day 0.

Next stop was The Venetian to get registered for Oracle AI World. Like last year, the whole conference was based there, while SuiteWorld was also happening over at Caesar’s Palace.

I headed over around 1:30pm with my Version 1 colleagues Geoff and Kate, who were joining me at the conference this year. Luckily, registration wasn’t too busy and we were through pretty quickly!

Quick photo opportunity!

I gave Geoff and Kate a quick orientation of the conference, before we headed over to the Oracle Partner Success Summit nice and early to make sure we got good seats at the front!

Oracle Partner Success Summit

The Partner Success Summit kicked off with Leah Yomtovian, Senior Vice President, Partner, Sales, and Operations Strategy thanking the partner community and talking about the importance of customer success. One announcement that certainly caught my attention was Oracle’s plan to invest $1 billion into its partner programme, with the aim of driving greater success for both Oracle and its partners.

A big theme throughout the summit was how partners can help customers move beyond simply adopting new technology and actually deliver meaningful outcomes.

Driving Cloud Migrations

One of the most interesting parts for me was the discussion around multicloud. Nathan Thomas, SVP, Product Management OCI talked about how multicloud is increasingly becoming the default and a key part of Oracle’s strategy.

There were perspectives from AWS, Google and Microsoft, showing just how far Oracle’s multicloud strategy has come.

With AWS (Sara Alligood, Director, WW Strategic Partners), one of the messages that really stood out was: don’t move the data, connect the AI to it. With Oracle AI Database@AWS, the database can sit close to the applications and services already running in AWS, allowing customers to take advantage of services such as Amazon Bedrock without unnecessarily moving their data around.

The approach was nicely summed up as:

Assess → Rationalise → Migrate → Innovate

For me, that last step is particularly important. Migration shouldn’t just be about moving a database from one place to another. The real opportunity comes from what customers can do once they get there.

With Google Cloud (Chacko Thomas, Global Director, Oracle Partnership), the theme was very much better together, with increasingly close integration between Oracle and Gemini. This included connecting Gemini with Oracle AI Database@Google Cloud, as well as bringing Gemini capabilities into Oracle Fusion.

Microsoft (Stephen Boyle, Corporate Vice President, Enterprise Partner Solutions) also talked about the importance of trust, built from around 30 years of Oracle and Microsoft working together. The message here was about listening to customers, understanding why they want Oracle and Microsoft technologies together, and then using the wider partner ecosystem to bring the industry and customer knowledge needed to make it successful.

Delivering Agentic Applications

Another major theme, unsurprisingly, was AI and agents.

Oracle (Natalia Rachelson, SVP, Product Management, Oracle Fusion Cloud Application) talked about its Fusion agentic applications and how it is continuing to take AI further within its applications. A DHL example highlighted something I thought was particularly important: successful AI isn’t just about the technology. It requires the customer, partner and Oracle working together, backed by strong governance and leadership.

That message came up several times during the summit.

Oracle AI Data Platform

We also heard from Srikant Gokulnatha, SVP, AI Data Platform about how the Oracle AI Data Platform can help organisations get more value from fragmented enterprise data.

MasTec was used as one example, where fragmented data and reporting were challenges and KPMG identified Oracle AI Data Platform as a potential fit.

For me, this tied back nicely to the wider message of the day: data is at the heart of AI, and organisations need to get their data strategy right if they want to move AI beyond experimentation.

NVIDIA Spotlight

The NVIDIA spotlight finished with another message that resonated with me.

Only a few years ago, many organisations were still experimenting with AI. We are now increasingly seeing customers looking at how they can take AI into production and run it at scale.

The Oracle and NVIDIA partnership is part of enabling that shift, combining Oracle’s data and cloud platforms with NVIDIA accelerated computing and giving customers greater choice around AI models and infrastructure.

Oracle EMEA Partner Awards

Next up was the Oracle EMEA Partner Awards. Version 1 was a finalist in several categories this year, so we headed in hoping we might come away with some success! This event was hosted by Philippa Clifford-Davies.

Great news, we won! 🏆

Version 1 picked up the EMEA Fusion Breakthrough Award, which was a fantastic result. Well done to all my colleagues in our Enterprise Applications practice who contributed to this achievement.

Geoff and Kate had the honour of collecting the award from Kevin Kimber on behalf of Version 1. A brilliant way to start Oracle AI World!

We were also finalists in the following categories. We didn’t win these ones, but still a fantastic achievement and great recognition for the team.

Well done again to everyone in our Enterprise Applications practice!

Oracle Database Premiere Customer Appreciation Event

Last stop of a very busy Day 1 was the Oracle Database Premier Customer Appreciation Event.

I’ve attended this event for the past four years, with the previous three held at Madame Tussauds in The Venetian. This year, there was a change of venue, with the event taking place at TAO.

Madame Tussauds was definitely more entertaining 😎, but TAO still provided a great opportunity to catch up with friends, colleagues and customers, meet members of Oracle Product Management, and do plenty of networking. Got to meet, Kiran Tailor, Chandan Tanwani, Sai Penumuru, David Castle (Kobalt – Version 1 customer), Kate Edmunds, Geoff Lashbrook, Sara Narayan, Connor McDonald, Alex Blyth and Dominic Giles.

That’s Day 1 done!

Tomorrow is the first day of the actual conference, and I’m presenting in the first session at 8am alongside David Castle from Kobalt.

So, time for an early night. First time presenting at Oracle AI World tomorrow! Really looking forward to it! 😎👍🏽

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Thanks

Zed DBA (Zahid Anwar)